82 Chibok Girls Released From Boko Haram Are Reportedly Still Under Government Custody

Some parents are concerned.

Earlier this month, 82 of the nearly 300 schoolgirls originally kidnapped from their boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria, by the ISIS-affiliated terrorist group Boko Haram were released. The girls were released in exchange for five top Boko Haram commanders, CNN reported.

Video footage of the reunion posted on Twitter by Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan, the minister of women’s affairs and social development in Nigeria, shows a rapturous scene of the Chibok girls’ reunion with their families. Fathers lifted their daughters — now young women — off the ground like infants, mothers wiped tears away from their eyes, and the girls embraced one another in group huddles.

Al Jazeera video footage showed the ecstatic girls playing drums, singing, and dancing with each other. NPR reported that journalists were not permitted to interview the girls.

Although the families of the girls boarded buses to return home to Chibok after the meeting, the girls have been in Abuja ever since, undergoing medical checkups, psychological evaluations, and vocational training. The girls are expected to return to school by September.

While the international community celebrated the release of the girls from captivity, some organizations and parents criticized the Nigerian government for holding the girls for so long before they return to their families.

Mausi Segun of Human Rights Watch wrote on May 8 that “authorities should clarify to families whether the rescued girls are being held in preventive detention or as criminal suspects.” Segun criticized the government’s lack of transparency in handling the Chibok girls’ return. “Families should have access to their daughters and be informed of the reasons for their continued detention,” she said.